“My name’s David, I’ve jus’ turned 16 and I live in a town called Livingston in the Scottish central belt. For the past three weeks I’ve been on holiday staying with my cousin ‘n’ his family here in Macrihanish.
His dad works with the army, fuck knows what he does but he earns a packet for it.
Well, back to the story.
Ummm…Oh Yeah that’s where I was… OK my cousin and I were walking along the beach on what seemed like yer usual dull as fuck day in Macrihanish talkin’, as was our usual, about football.
In other words I was firing out new and excitin’ ways o sayin’ Rangers couldn’t win back the league even if they were the only team in it. As we were arguing and walking along the beach, something caught my cousin Andy’s eye. Somethin’ over by the water was glintin’ in the midday sun.
We moved closer and realised it was some sort of red jewel; on close inspection it had some weird drawin’s on it.
If I had known then, what I do now I would’ve chucked the thing intae the sea and buggered off as far away fae it as humanly possible.” I explained to the reporter who had arrived to interview some of the residents after the recent spate of weird shit happening in and around the village.
“Well David, as interestin’ as your story is, what the hell has it got to do with the disappearance and murder of residents over the past fortnight? I also don’t see how some kind of rock ties into the disappearances and the cracks in the ground outside!” The journalist retorted in a this guy’s a nut job kind of tone.
“Cracks?” I spluttered half-shocked and angry. “What fuckin’ cracks?”
“The cracks that have opened on the beach, they were there when I had arrived here this mornin’!” He replied.
“How the…? What the fu…? Eh…?” I stuttered out in disbelief.
This shows how much attention I pay at dark o’ fuckin’ clock when some idiot knocks on the door.
“I’ll see what I can find out for you if you will just calm down and continue with the story.” The journalist said whilst motioning me to sit down.
Glaring at him, I continued. “I first noticed something was up when I was sitting just out front of the house and every dog which went near the place either refused point blank to get any closer or dragged their owners across the road in a bid to put some distance between them and whatever was giving them the heebie-jeebies. I’ve never seen a dog so scared as the ones I saw that day.” I shifted to get comfortable, fixed my eyes on the reporter again and continued with the story.
“I decided it had to have something to do with the jewel we had found so I contacted a University somewhere in Glasgow and they sent out one of their historical experts, Dr… ummm… errrr… What’s his fuckin name?
At first Andy had clung to the precious stone believing it was valuable, however after a few days even he had started to notice its eerie-aura, so he was pleased when I said that Dr what’s-his-fuckin’-name wanted to see it.
Dr what’s-his-fuckin’-name arrived the next day and Andy and I went to meet him in the town with the jewel.
We met him in a café and he introduced himself as Dr what’s-his-fuckin’-name, after introducing ourselves we all sat down to have some lunch, although looking at the guy it seemed he was still saving some o’ his breakfast in his beard.
After lunch we got down to the reason he had come to the area; the jewel. I handed the jewel to the doctor and he proceeded to examine it, after a few minutes of intense silence on our part and extreme concentration on his, he told us that he couldn’t be sure without further study but it seems we’ve unearthed something pretty powerful.
We allowed him to take it back to his hotel room and agreed to meet in a day or two to see what he had been able to find out. Andy and I waited until 2 nights later when we got the call we had anxiously been expectin’.
There had been a few strange events in those 2 days but we hadn’t connected them to our situation as yet.
At the other end of the line was the doctor, he explained that he’d been able to find some more out about the jewel and the strange markings so he arranged to meet with us in the bar of the hotel the next day.
It didn’t take us long to get to hotel the next day and as a result we were a little early to meet what’s-his-fuckin’-name, so Andy and I decided to have a drink whilst we waited his arrival. The meeting time came and went, and so did the drinks. Andy was beginning to feel a little tipsy when we realised that the guy wasn’t going to turn up.
We approached the desk and explained that our friend was late and asked for his room number. After a few minutes of reasonable discussion, in other words me threatening the clerk with extreme violence, we were told the number. We got to the room and knocked.
No answer. We tried the door handle and it opened.
The room had papers scattered here and there with sketching and writing on it, and we found a tape recorder by the bed but no sign of what’s-his-fuckin’-name or the jewel. We figured he’d taken the jewel and buggered off somewhere tae sell it, so we took the tape from the recorder and left. As soon as we got back here I put the tape on and listened to it. Recognising the voice straight away, Andy and I listened intently to what he was saying.
The recordings were more like jumbled up thoughts so I began taking notes to try to put them into some coherent order. After about six hours of mind-numbing boredom, what’s-his-fuckin’-name’s voice changed to an excited spit filled barrage. He had found something!” I paused to reorder my thoughts as the journalist hurriedly scribbled on his pad.
“In his exhilaration it was hard to figure out what that mad bastard was saying but after a few minutes he composed himself and began to explain. In terms a 16 year old could understand, he said - cheeky bastard - the jewel kept the gates to hell closed. Andy and I both laughed at this bullshit and thought no more of it.
I was reading the paper, must’ve been last week, according to one of the reports said that what’s-his-fuckin’-name had been found dead near the graveyard in the town and there was no mention of the jewel, Andy and I were mortified but still it was a coincidence wasn’t it?” I stopped at this point and went to the kitchen to get a drink.
Coming back upstairs I watched as the reporter scribbled furiously on his pad to catch up before I carried on.
“Just after he was found there were more reports of people going missing then being found dead, some weren’t even found, it was around this point it started to register that somethin’ seriously fucked up was goin’ on in the area.
I had been keepin’ an eye on things and even went to visit a few of the places where the missing ones had last been seen, I felt I was beginning to get somewhere when everythin’ suddenly stopped, no more disappearances and things seemed to die down.
Until now, as I’ve been sittin’ here talking to you those cracks have appeared on the beach.” As I uttered those last words I jumped up and shot out of the door to go have a look at the cracks.
When I got to the beach I had a quick look around, from what I could make out each one was about 11 metres long by 6 wide and although they were almost pitch black inside I thought I could see what looked like the silhouettes of tunnel walls. After investigating the area I decided there was nothing more for me to do so I went back to the house.
I didn’t do much for the rest of the day, until about 7ish when Andy came running in. “David, you comin’ oot tae dae commando runs?” He panted in my direction. “And… what in the fuck are they?” I asked. “It’s where we run across the gardens of the big houses along the front o’ the village - clothes optional.” He explained.
“I am not stripping’ so you can get that thought oot yer head. I will come along though.” I began searching for my trainers.
“Hurry up then bitch.” He fired back whilst half way out the door.
At first I was a little reluctant to join in but watching Andy and his friends having fun I decided to do a few runs. We all had a great laugh especially on the numerous occasions when we were nearly caught.
No doubt the local police were getting pissed off with all the prowler reports dragging them out to the village ten minutes after they’d left the place.
“Shit; the Pigs are back.” One of Andy’s friends yelled from somewhere behind me.
“Whit?” Another of Andy’s friends asked, as if it wasn’t clear enough.
“Jus’ get down behind the wa’ shitheid!” Came the instant reply.
When we thought the car had gone and began to rise from our various hiding places, there was a sudden ear-bursting screech of brakes. We turned around just in time to see the car hit a crack in the ground, flip over and burst into flames.
The four of us ran towards the accident, as we were about almost close enough to help the passengers - the car exploded. The shockwave from the blast sent all of us hurtling over the sea wall and onto the beach and rocks behind, Andy and I landing in the sand, relatively painlessly.
“Andy, you OK?” I shouted once my senses began to return.
“Aye, ‘am fine what ‘bout you?” He replied.
Just at that moment I heard a loud groan from over in the rocks. Both of us got up a little dizzily at first, and then dusting ourselves off we jogged towards the noise.
“Keep calling! We’re comin’!” I yelled
“Over here by the wee boat.” The voice said fading.
“Ah fuck its just you Chrissy!” I said sarcastically as he came into view.
“Fuck up ya wide-o! Help me up, I can’t feel ma right arm, is it still there?”
“Oh aye, its there alright but….” My voice tapered off as I searched my brain for the words.
“But what?” Chrissy asked getting impatient.
“I’m tryin’ tae think of a way to tell you without freakin’ ye oot.”
“Tell…Me…What?” Chrissy said, now getting understandably pissed off.
I was about to answer when Andy interrupted me. “Tell you that yer arm looks like ye’ve had a fight wi’ a chainsaw - the chainsaw won!”
“Well done, that’s just not gonna freak him out ya half-wit.” I snorted in Andy’s direction with just a hint of my trademark sarcasm.
“Ewww; ahv got scabies.” Chrissy half-screeched at us, as he started to freak out.
“Well, I told ye tae stop wankin’, but did ye listen? Naw, ye didnae. You had to keep havin’ sex wi’ palm every night, twice on Fridays!” Andy joked.
“Do you really think it has somethin’ to do wi’ the wankin’?” Chrissy asked, looking serious and worried.
As soon as Chrissy had said it I started laughing, I was almost crying from laughing so hard, and Andy, as slow as he is, started laughing about 3 weeks later when his brain finally caught up.
“Talkin’ ‘bout wankers where in the hell is Ally? We’d better find him. Chrissy you see where he landed?” I asked as I got back to my feet and brushed the sand off.
“Over there I think, I would’ve tried to see exactly where, but I was rather busy tryin’ to land safely, as you can see I couldn’t even manage that.” Chrissy said in a semi-sarcastic tone.
“Let’s get movin’ Andy, and Chris, don’t move!” Andy and I moved off in the direction Chris had pointed.
We searched and searched for what seemed like forever, eventually finding Ally - or what we thought was him.
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